Observations in China

[ChristianAnarchist]

Have you had an opportunity to notice the spies following you around yet?

Haha... I have to admit that my first trip here 18 years ago I was apprehensive about the possibility that I would get into some "trouble" being a westerner in a "communist" country, but on the very first trip I realized that pretty much NOTHING that I thought about China was true. The "government agents" are basically lazy and would like to be doing anything other than working. Most of the infrastructure was not in good repair so their "intelligence" gathering was not very effective. In that last few years, they have improved their network of cameras and their ability to monitor the internet has grown at a staggering rate, but still, the growth in the numbers of people online and the sheer numbers of people walking, driving, and riding every type of wheeled vehicle makes TOTAL supervision impossible. When entering or leaving the country, I have FAR less hassle with the Chinese goons than I do with the goons at home.

If you think I have to worry about being spied on in China, check what the USA goons are doing to spy on everyone...

[american.swan]

Your story is awesome. Your comments on cops is almost mirrored here. I was going to turn left safely but illegally, I didn't know the cops here behind me. They honked as I was about to go, so I wouldn't go.

The police here are not lazy people, but they don't want to be bothered with your paper work and leave the vast majority of the people alone. One example I like is wifi. In Korea, you're not supposed to be anonymous online. But coffee shops all over have free wifi anyways. The big brand names like starbucks has wifi registration. None of the others do.

I get the feeling here most stupid laws are ignored.

[TER]

love this thread! fill us in on more observations you may have about life in China! (i'm pretty fascinated with their culture...)

[Demigod]

Haha... I have to admit that my first trip here 18 years ago I was apprehensive about the possibility that I would get into some "trouble" being a westerner in a "communist" country, but on the very first trip I realized that pretty much NOTHING that I thought about China was true. The "government agents" are basically lazy and would like to be doing anything other than working. Most of the infrastructure was not in good repair so their "intelligence" gathering was not very effective. In that last few years, they have improved their network of cameras and their ability to monitor the internet has grown at a staggering rate, but still, the growth in the numbers of people online and the sheer numbers of people walking, driving, and riding every type of wheeled vehicle makes TOTAL supervision impossible. When entering or leaving the country, I have FAR less hassle with the Chinese goons than I do with the goons at home.

If you think I have to worry about being spied on in China, check what the USA goons are doing to spy on everyone...

That is true everywhere in the world.I think that the USA is the only place in the world where government agents like doing their job.In other countries unless someone from the top presses them to do something,they are more than glad to sit in the offices.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Chinese "patriotism"... It's almost non-existant. As a "Christian Anarchist", I do not like "patriotism" of any kind as I see it as worshiping a false god. I see only our Creator as having true authority over us and our fiction "government" is supposed to be (in theory) CREATED by us in the position of SERVANT. Since when do "masters" worship their "servants"? It's abby-normal !! "Pledge" to a flag? What's that all about??

Anyway, as far a patriotism in China, look out. The Chinese are NOT very patriotic because they DO NOT worship their government goons. In that last 18 years I've looked for the signs of patriotism here and until recently I saw NONE. There were almost NO Chinese displaying their flag. In the last couple of years though I've seen a small increase in people putting the flag on their car or hanging in their shop. It's still a very small number but I think US policy is actually helping to foster greater Chinese patriotism. They resent our interference in their border disputes and international dealings. I fear a "patriotic" China. Right now it would be difficult to get these kids to march off to war, but if China ever became as "patriotic" as the brainwashed masses in the USA, look out. Those billions of soldiers would be unstoppable. Lets just leave them alone and they will never get that way...

[Vanilluxe]

Hmm, when I went to Macau and Hong Kong, I felt a similar experience although those places are more "westernized" due to status of being former colonies. Buddhism and catholism were partially merged in Macau I recalled.

[tttppp]

I'm currently in China (my wife is Chinese and we come here a couple of times per year to visit) and I've been traveling to China for about 18 years. Some observations this trip in no particular order.

We arrived about a week ago in Beijing and traveled by train to Wuhan where my wife's father is in the hospital to have bladder stones removed and prostate TERP. We have been visiting him in the hospital every day. Since my wife is an internal medicine doctor in the US, we have been making comparisons to the differences in health care. The same procedure in the US would require the patient to show up the night before surgery having not eaten for 12 hours. Here, the patient is kept in the hospital for about 6 days before the surgery and on IV fluids for several days. My wife's father is borderline diabetic so his sugar levels must be monitored, yet here, they consider fructose to be "safe" for diabetics so they gave him IV fructose most every day. They then express concern about his diet because his sugar levels were shooting up to levels we had never observed at home. My wife mentioned this, but did not want to make too many waves so she did not press the issue. As far as procedures, they seem to have at least as good a result here as in the US and the doctors are very skilled in their area of expertise. A major difference is in nursing. Here the family is responsible for the greater patient care including food, turning, bed pans, etc. The nurses take care of hanging the IV's, connecting to patient monitors, and blood testing. The family is responsible for WATCHING the patient monitor and calling the nurse if any levels are out of range. We spent one night there right after the operation and after that, we hired a sitter to take on those responsibilities. Post-op they usually have the patient in for about 7 days vs our 3 days. He is post-op 4 days today and doing fine.

More later...

How can you have an analysis of chinese health care without mentioning chinese traditional medicine?

[ChristianAnarchist]

Chinese has two health care systems that function side by side. Traditional "western" medicine and Chinese herbal and holistic medicine such as acupuncture etc. Unlike the USA where we pretty much guarantee that anyone can walk into a hospital and be treated whether you can pay or not, in China you actually have to be able to afford the treatment (although there is a "government" health plan that covers everyone who has worked for the government or is on one of the very limited welfare programs). Since many people have to pay for their own health care, they can easily opt for the Chinese medicine instead of western medicine. It's all about what they feel most comfortable with and they can afford. In this regard, they are more "market" oriented than we are.

To change the subject, we had a different taxi driver today who was VERY anti-government. He (as many people in China) feels that the USA does everything right and the PRC does everything wrong. He stated how the big government "in crowd" makes all the money and makes all the rules that keep everyone poor except for the in crowd. He was quite bitter about how the inflation rate never keeps up with earnings so everyone gets poorer each year. This seems to be the way of the working class in China as in the USA. The elite are manipulating the markets so that they reap all the profits while the working stiff gets to pay the bills. I did learn an interesting fact about tickets here in China. It seems that all those cameras that are busy snapping photos of "violators" just keep piling up on the "tab" of the license plate. I asked him how they notify you of a violation and he says it all comes due when you go to renew your plate every year. Imagine going to renew your plate and finding you had 20 moving violations during the year and now you must pay them all to get your plate renewed. It doesn't even matter WHO was driving the vehicle, all offenses are pegged to the CAR, not the driver. Of course their fines are only a fraction of what we pay, but they also make much less per year than we do...

[tttppp]

Chinese has two health care systems that function side by side. Traditional "western" medicine and Chinese herbal and holistic medicine such as acupuncture etc. Unlike the USA where we pretty much guarantee that anyone can walk into a hospital and be treated whether you can pay or not, in China you actually have to be able to afford the treatment (although there is a "government" health plan that covers everyone who has worked for the government or is on one of the very limited welfare programs). Since many people have to pay for their own health care, they can easily opt for the Chinese medicine instead of western medicine. It's all about what they feel most comfortable with and they can afford. In this regard, they are more "market" oriented than we are.

To change the subject, we had a different taxi driver today who was VERY anti-government. He (as many people in China) feels that the USA does everything right and the PRC does everything wrong. He stated how the big government "in crowd" makes all the money and makes all the rules that keep everyone poor except for the in crowd. He was quite bitter about how the inflation rate never keeps up with earnings so everyone gets poorer each year. This seems to be the way of the working class in China as in the USA. The elite are manipulating the markets so that they reap all the profits while the working stiff gets to pay the bills. I did learn an interesting fact about tickets here in China. It seems that all those cameras that are busy snapping photos of "violators" just keep piling up on the "tab" of the license plate. I asked him how they notify you of a violation and he says it all comes due when you go to renew your plate every year. Imagine going to renew your plate and finding you had 20 moving violations during the year and now you must pay them all to get your plate renewed. It doesn't even matter WHO was driving the vehicle, all offenses are pegged to the CAR, not the driver. Of course their fines are only a fraction of what we pay, but they also make much less per year than we do...

Thank you. Thats better.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Here are some photos I took in 2010 and they have the gps co-oridinates so you can check where they were taken. I have since forgotten my password so I cannot add more (and I used a phony email address to set up the account so I cannot recover the password). I might start another account, but I really don't like giving all my info to google, so maybe I won't. Perhaps I can find another more anonymous picture sharing site...

http://www.panoramio.com/user/5384840